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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25969213">Silence; Vengeance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArdeaWrites/pseuds/ArdeaWrites'>ArdeaWrites</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dishonored (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Jessamine Lives, Callista is helpful, Corvo/Jessamine is in flashbacks, Gen, Role Reversal, Selectively mute, Torture (not graphic), hell hath no fury like a mother, making up NPCs as the plot demands, plot maneuvering to make it make sense for Jessamine to take up the mask, there wasn't supposed to be more but now there is, womanly resolve to get revenge</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:55:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,305</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25969213</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArdeaWrites/pseuds/ArdeaWrites</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Corvo Attano's last act as Royal Protector is to shield his Empress from Daud's fatal blow. Jessamine is left holding the body of her lover and the ashes of her reign as Burrows frames her for witchcraft and infanticide. In Coldridge one thought keeps her alive: <i>Rescue Emily; Take Vengeance.</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Corvo Attano/Jessamine Kaldwin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Had a thought; wrote it down.<br/>After all no one has more right than Jessamine to deliver the fatal blow. Also I think she'd decide the Outsider was one of her subjects and treat him with utter irreverence and that would be entertaining. Empresses bow to <i>no one</i>, after all.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
</p><p>She knew who she was. She knew who she was born to be, the skin she wore, the voice she commanded. Sovereignty. Responsibility. Sacrifice. An Empress born, living and in death, never lesser. </p><p>And as she watched the blade slide through his spine and strangers’ arms enclose her daughter, she saw all that future unspool in her heart. Knew her reign was over. </p><p>She’d have traded it all for them. She’d have been born a maid in the dust district, an orphan in the flooded district, a fisherwoman on a wandering boat, born and lived and died there, if she could have lived and died with Corvo in her arms. </p><p>She wanted to scream but the sound caught in her throat. Empresses do not scream. </p><p>She cradled his body as the warm blood soaked into her. The sword had been dropped across his chest, an offering. </p><p>The assassin laughed, a low, rough bitter laugh. “Take your vengeance, Empress.” And then the red coat was gone, and she blinked away black magic and heresy. The guards were coming. They’d find- they’d catch- </p><p>The sword was in her hand. She commanded. They didn’t listen. She was surrounded. The sword knocked away. Her face pressed in the blood, warm and sticky, <i>his</i> blood, by heavy hands. </p><p>“So it has come to this, Jessamine,” Burrows said. “I had hoped you might learn restraint while he was away, but it seems you learned only sorcery and betrayal. I am glad he’s dead; he’ll be spared the knowledge of his <i>replacement.</i>” Burrows spat the words, as he rolled Corvo over and picked up the sword. “It seems bastards run in your family. Is that why you had her murdered? Poor little Emily, so beloved and yet so far from the throne.” </p><p>Hands jerked her up, hands that should have been protecting her. Burrows loomed above. “I have always hated the thought of commoner blood on our beloved throne, Jessamine, but even so what mother would have her own daughter murdered just to cover for the stain of a dalliance? Were you afraid his Serkonan skin would show in her as she blossomed? Or were her eyes too much like his for you to bear?” He straightened up. </p><p>She heard the lies, the accusations, and the hundred thousand gossiped words behind each one. The guards would spread the story, twisted with each telling. </p><p>She stood, under the heavy hands of four armed soldiers, and she looked him in the eye, every inch his Empress. She saw him quake, take that little half-step back, shift his eyes away as he always did. Fear, guilt? The man hated her, for reasons beyond her understanding. He always had, but he was her spymaster, sworn to her service, and irreplaceable. Until he decided to replace <i>her.</i></p><p>She did not fight them. An Empress did not do undignified battle with four strong men. An Empress is patient. She waits, she watches, she holds her tongue. </p><p>Under the lash, she keeps her silence. An Empress does not cry. Under the shouted questions, the sharp slap of a leather glove on her cheek, the demands of the Abbey, the purging of the flesh- </p><p>-an Empress keeps her silence. It was all she had left within her control. </p><p>In the dark nights, deep in the cell, she cried. Silently, she cried. Called his name over and over, reached for Emily in her dreams. Screamed out her rage at the greed of lesser men, who would cut off the simple love they’d shared and call it a just ambition. </p><p>The accusations were ridiculous. She and Corvo were the isles’ worst-kept secret. They were discrete, followed decorum, and in public and even within the outer layers of the Tower they kept up the insurmountable wall between Royalty and the common Lord Protector. But within them, where she set down her authority and he his sword, they were man and woman before one another, lovers and parents, sharing in co-creating of Emily and through her, the future of the Isles. </p><p>The word <i>bastard</i> had no meaning between them. </p><p>Bastard, black magic, and insinuations of infanticide; secret dalliances, rivals for Corvo, a love-child by some pure-blooded prince? Jessamine would have laughed them off. They were a paper-craft fabrication, as real as a shadowbox pantomime, fodder for the driveling street press. </p><p>But rumors and words were all it took for Burrows to sink his venomous fangs into her people’s trust and to coil himself about the cold throne.  </p><p><i>They blame you for the rat plague,</i> the guards told her, laughing. <i>Say if their empress had held to the strictures maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess now, hm? But the throne ought not stay empty, Empress. Tell us the name of the child. Tell us the name of your lover. We’ll ensure your line is preserved, but we won’t have a child-murdering witch whore on our throne!</i></p><p>An Empress owns her words, most of all the ones she does not say. </p><p>“You will be treated well, with all respect due your position,” Burrows had said. “You needn’t fear my men. They are not animals.” She did not believe his words, not when his goatskin gloves made a mockery of a gentle touch along her jaw. But his men were <i>not</i> animals towards her, and she was permitted the decency of not being raped. </p><p>They withheld that torture, but not the others. </p><p>She had a list in her mind. What she could live with, and what she could not live without. Once, Corvo’s name had been on the <i>could not live without</i> list, along with a great many foolish petty things, but now there was only one word. </p><p>Emily. </p><p>Her assurance that Emily lived was her continued stay in Coldridge. Jessamine might never speak. She might die in the cold rotted place. Emily would then be Empress, an impressionable young child easily controlled by the cadre of men who had destroyed her mother. But if Jessamine could be broken and confess to witchcraft and name an heir of their choosing, they would have no reason to ‘preserve the line.’ No, there would be a witch-burning, and somewhere in the city a small girl would die. </p><p>Her silence held all her love for Emily; with every blow, with every sharp breath and groan and wet sound of pain, with the knowledge she’d never dance again (she knew how feet were put together; those bones didn’t belong in that order) or that her hair would never grow back the rich deep chestnut Corvo had so adored (they’d shorn it, to humiliate her, and then they’d burned her scalp with uncured soap under the falsehood of treating lice), or that no paint in all the isles could cover the scars on her lips (she’d bitten through them, to hold that silence, more than once,) she cried her daughter’s name in her heart. </p><p>There were many things she now survived that she had not believed possible. Things she hadn’t known could hurt so much, hadn’t known a man might inflict, with passive face and infuriating mock reverence, upon a body he’d once bowed before. </p><p>She’d lost the body itself, somewhere in the mess; lost the woman she knew and recognized and become a gaunt, starved thing, all bone and hunger and instinctive fear. </p><p>She was not afraid. <i>She,</i> Jessamine, had born Emily from that body and thus had conquered all her own fear of pain, but the flesh wanted warmth and kindness and healing, and it flinched back from the lash and iron, and such weakness only made them laugh. </p><p>But when the key and the note appeared under the rotten weevil-strewn bread, she clutched her daughter’s memory close and put on again her crown. She was <i>Empress</i> and she would have her vengeance. </p><p><br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
</p>
<p>The key was still cold in her palm when he came to her. </p>
<p>Salt wind, cool and clear off the sea, filled her throat. She closed her eyes and smelled the tide and whale blood, felt the chill of the morning fog, heard the gulls crying over the rocks below the tower. Freedom, she thought, such a small thing to promise it, and the key might not even open her cell.  </p>
<p>“Freedom? Is that the depths of your desire?” he asked. </p>
<p>She recognized the voice as the crash of storm waves on stone, the echoing hollow roar of the angry wind. Jessamine smiled a broken, bloody smile. “What would you offer me instead, little god?” she asked, her voice as hollow as his, dry in her throat from disuse. If she believed it within his power she’d have fallen at his feet and begged for her daughter’s life, but that was not <i>his</i> way. One did not ask the sea for mercy, or the wind for love. </p>
<p>“Oh Jessamine, so far from your throne. Your protector is dead, your champions have deserted you and your precious daughter Emily is lost in the city you used to rule. You are at the pivotal point, my dear empress. So many futures on your fingertips. Which will you choose?” </p>
<p>She whirled on him, her knees swollen and pained, her feet in agony, but she held herself straight as steel. “Not one in which I bow to you, godling. Make your case or begone. I have heard enough of the offers of men.” </p>
<p>He laughed, teeth white and blunt, eyes black as tar. “You bowed to me as a child, Jessamine. You were mine, once, you and your sister both. I wonder what’s become of her. What would she think of you, Empress, locked away in a small cold cage? Would she think it <i>fair?</i>” </p>
<p>She did not slap him for his impudence, because her hands were blistered and nails bloody and they’d broken two of her fingers. She held her silence instead, let all the anger wash over the pain. Anger was kinder, anger was warmer. </p>
<p>He leaned close to her, his skin unnaturally pale over bones too large for his face, and he whispered “Come find me, Empress. When you are free.” </p>
<p>And then he was gone, and she alone in the cell, key like ice in her hand. She breathed out and sank with a groan. As a child she’d found the Outsider a fascinating piece of fairy-tale but her sister had latched onto the dark godling’s heretical legend with a fanaticism both disturbing and admirable. They had played make-believe with purple bed sheets and bits of chicken bone, until Jessamine grew out of the foolishness and Delilah… well, maybe Delilah never did. </p>
<p>Jessamine hadn’t thought about her sister in a very long time and she wasn’t going to start now. Emily came first. Emily, then a slow cold revenge for Corvo’s murder and the theft of her throne and country. </p>
<p>Sympathizers were out there, allies, men and women who still held her name as dear in their hearts as on their coins. The key was proof, and the proof turned the lock. </p>
<p>Empresses did not <i>sneak,</i> but she did not feel an empress just yet. No crown would protect her from a sword or bullet or teeth of a hound, so she crept. Bent almost double, her body smaller than she remembered, her joints stiffer and more painful, her heels tracking old blood. She slid like a wraith behind the guards, her steps silent and measured. </p>
<p>Hours on a dance floor. Hours, and hours and hours, in tiny narrow cramped shoes, practicing every step until her toes bled. <i>Her arms around Corvo, practicing late into the night. “Why do this to yourself?” he asked as he slid her tortured feet free of the shoes.</i></p><p>
  <i></i>
</p>
<p>
  <i></i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Because I must be perfect,” she replied, and winced as he washed the blistered skin. “I’m not perfect yet. Dancemaster says I’m still too stiff. Father says I have feet like an ox and he can hear me stomping a league down the hall.” She bit back a small cry as Corvo rubbed off a scab. “I have to be perfect.” </i>
</p>
<p><i>“I’m sorry.” He rubbed her blisters with the soothing, smelly tallow lotion the soldiers used on their hounds’ feet. There was nothing more he could say and she knew it. The Serkonan boy was good with a sword and pretty in a uniform and utterly devoted to her, but he couldn’t protect her from her future.</i> </p>
<p>He couldn’t protect himself from her future either. </p>
<p>She knew how to walk with a crown and a cloak and the eyes of multitudes on her back. She knew how to walk with the power of a nation in the palm of her hands. And she knew how to walk in utter silence, toes bare on the cold stone floor, not a sound, not a whisper of cloth or the rattle of glass, not a cry as displaced bone twisted and burned. </p>
<p>The prison was a labyrinth of wings and blocks and levels old and new. Every ruling family somehow managed to expand upon the aging construct, adding their own ideal horrors to its history. Jessamine counted herself fortunate she hadn’t been held, or been tortured, in a space she’d commissioned; she hadn’t gotten that far yet, but now with Burrows and his supporters at large, she was beginning to plan. </p>
<p>Her feet took her to the torture chamber. She had to know, for sure, had to face it one last time. There was evidence that would incriminate the other traitors. Burrows and Campbell had a confession they wished her to sign and, possibly, the names of the so-called “consort” and “heir” they wished to install on her throne. </p>
<p>A few names came to mind. Then more names. </p>
<p>Possibly many. She’d had time to think on it. </p>
<p>She was not a hated dictator, slaughtering innocents and ruining fortunes at her whim, but she had ruled with a firm hand and where her father indulged the nobility, she had reined them in. Powerful people resented her, though before the plague the common folk had been happy enough. The streets had been safe, the gangs quelled or negotiated into cooperation, the guards restrained from wanton violence and bribery. The price of whale oil was rising throughout the isles, and the price of food alongside it, but slowly, and it had not yet outpaced the majority’s reach. Some were hungry but they did not starve. They were cold but they did not die frozen in gutters. </p>
<p>An acceptable level of discomfort, she’d once thought. </p>
<p>Oh, what she would not give for soft fresh bread and a warm bath, for a sable wrap and a feather bed. For safety, and for Corvo to rub the smelly hound lotion on her aching hands and feet. <i>For Corvo…</i> </p>
<p>The interrogation room door was ajar. She opened it silently and stopped at the threshold. The room was empty and yet crowded by memory, by sensation. Her last session had been two days prior. They’d started on her every day, but out of fear they’d kill her or render her unrecognizable for her eventual execution, they’d held off to two or three times a week. </p>
<p>She looked at the black leather chair and looked away. It drew her in despite her loathing; she circled wide around it and chided herself for her fear. Was she afraid if she drew too near she’d be trapped by it again, wake and find this moment of freedom a fever dream between beatings? </p>
<p>Yes. Yes she was. She clenched her hands despite the pain of the badly-set fingers. </p>
<p>She ruled; she would not <i>be</i> ruled by the fears of lesser men and their petty painful games. The rusted black chair was not her throne. </p>
<p>Past it was the desk, and above it a larger than life painting of Campbell, as if placed to mock and overwhelm the poor fool in the torturer’s grasp. Campbell had offered her mercy, of a kind- mercy of a quick death. Promises of a knife instead of the firebrand, or a fast poison if she cooperated. Different kinds of death, for different kinds of lies. </p>
<p>For him, she would visit a certain kind of wrath. </p>
<p>But the desk held no clues to Emily’s whereabouts. Hopefully her allies behind the key would have more information. If they did not, she would shake the city until her daughter was produced, and if Emily be harmed or- </p>
<p><i>-dead- </i> </p>
<p>-there would be a reckoning, and the city would run red with the blood of atonement. </p>
<p>Nevermind she had no army, not soldiers or guards. She had hands, and in them a sword, and yes, she thought of the deep god’s promise. There was more she wanted. Much, much more. </p>
<p>Clockwork bomb in hand, she crossed the room to exit and stopped. </p>
<p>The chair sat empty, black and cold. </p>
<p>She tore the painting down and piled it on the chair and doused the whole thing with liquor from the desk drawers, and set it ablaze with the torturer’s firebrand. </p>
<p>Let the guards come running. They’d make a new chair, but at least no other poor soul need sit in her blood for their scourging. </p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Heat washed over her face, heat and raw fire and the stench of hot metal. She pressed herself back into the steel crate’s corner and waited only a scant few heartbeats for the fire to subside. Every guard in the prison would now come running, be alerted to her escape.</p><p>The Empress within her wanted to know who exactly was responsible for crafting such a device and how they had come to place it in a secure vault in a secure torture chamber in a secure wing of an equally secure Imperial prison, but she held that voice coldly aside, for address at a later assembly. In this moment, the prison’s security failure was only to her gain. </p><p>Four quick running steps, the displaced bones grinding knives underfoot, and she was over the threshold and into blinding sunlight. She had a glimpse of a bridge and water below. Sirens screamed and men in heavy boots came thundering behind. Freedom was a leap away-she prayed to the fates of the emperors gone before as she cast herself over the edge. </p><p>Cold saltwater closed over her, burning on her wounds and dragging her down by wet prisoners’ rags. She fought for the surface and came up gasping and shaking. The city sewers were straight ahead. </p><p>Safety, behind just one more door. </p><p>Cold wastewater from the gutters above sluiced down her back. She splashed through brown puddles slick and rainbowed with oil, and felt small things break underfoot. Rat skeletons. But the sewers were quiet and marginally warmer, as heat from the boilers and smelters soaked through brick and stone. The air was heavy with organic stink and loud with the drip and groan of steam pipes. </p><p>A gate blocked her way. She clutched its bars and willed it aside, a foolish bit of fancy, as if the city would recognize its Empress in her wretched state and bow to her will. There had to be a way, unless this was all an elaborate plot to have her executed via “escape.” </p><p>A flash of white paper, a note pinned to a crate. A fine, civilized, hand writing firmly and with authority. Ah, here were her loyal conspirators again. </p><p><i>Eutrice,</i> the note began, and she steadied it against the wood to stop her trembling fingers. </p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <i>Eutrice, if you are reading this, our plan worked and you have broken free of Coldridge. Up ahead you will find food and weapons. Make your way to the river and Samuel will bring you to us. We will make our introductions in person; suffice to say we are friends with deep pockets and are in need of your skills. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>We will meet face to face soon enough. </i>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>The note in her cell hadn’t been addressed by name. </p><p>And this one wasn’t addressed to her. Eutrice. <i>Eutrice.</i> The name was familiar, from prison—a name the guards used alongside colorful profanities—but from before as well, from the days of stateroom meetings and advisory councils and- </p><p>-The paper wrinkled in her fingers. Eutrice had been an up-and-coming Bottle Street killer, a knifer as the street called them. She’d been informed of his capture only days before her own nightmare began. She had authorized a small raise for the guards credited with his capture, as he’d become a thorn inciting street violence and had murdered, or at least taken credit for the murders, of several high-ranking Hatters and at least two of her own captains. </p><p>No one had rescued their empress. </p><p><i>Corvo,</i> she cried as she worked up the crates and into the narrow crawlspace over the gate, <i>They have forgotten me. </i></p><p>But she had not forgotten Emily, or her city, or her throne and the men who circled it now. She crushed the note and dropped it to the rats below.  </p><p>And froze as she heard guards’ voices. They were just ahead, below her, discussing her. The escape, incredulity in their tone. </p><p>The explosion. </p><p>“How many did she kill?” </p><p>“I guess if you’re the Empress, what’s a few guards’ lives to you?” </p><p><i>How many had she killed?</i> None. None. Her hands were clean and free of all blood but her own, and though she anticipated gladly the thought of killing her betrayers and Corvo’s murderer, she did not wish <i>death</i> upon the men and women too small and insignificant to defy their commanders. The bomb, then. The bomb had been large and skillfully made, and some one or more unknown guards caught in its blast. </p><p>Her fingers clenched on the steel grating beneath her as the door opened and the men walked through. One yelled, the other drew his sword, and the rats were upon them. She watched, horrified and sickened, as the vermin stripped flesh from bones in a writhing, squealing mass. </p><p>She’d heard of the ‘rat’ portion of this ‘rat plague,’ of course, but she’d never seen the act itself, and now she understood all too well the horror and nightmare of all those whose homes were the gutters and slums of her once-shining city. Bile rose in her throat as her empty stomach rolled in disgust, but she held herself still and made herself breath the hot stink of blood and rodent. </p><p>The prison was behind her but they would never stop hunting, not until she reclaimed the authority to decree herself free. </p><p>The sewer lead onwards. She swam up through the murky channels and avoided more knots of starving rats, climbed shaking onto the brick ledge and navigated narrow board bridges over cold scum. A man and a woman lay dead in each other’s arms, on a dirty mattress in a corner. Their bodies were decaying fast in the warm damp but they hadn’t yet been discovered by the swarms. </p><p>This too required vengeance, she thought. This too was her burden. </p><p>And then more bodies fell through the hole in the ceiling, landing heavily on the rocks below. The guards talked callously of plague and death and she hated them for their insult to her fallen citizens as she hated herself for feeding the corpses to the rats so she might continue her escape. She felt far from the throne, limping away from the sound of feeding rats, as far as if she’d sailed to the horizon. No one would ever know but her how she’d desecrated those nameless strangers. </p><p><i>I will not forget you,</i> she thought, both a promise to the corpses and a curse upon herself. How much more would her mistaken freedom cost? </p><p>The killer they wanted; would he have hesitated to spend the flesh of his fellows to ensure his own survival? Doubtful. </p><p>She stilled herself. Someone had wanted to hire an assassin, and someone had given her a key intended for him. She walked a path not intended for sovereign feet but she would finish it nonetheless. Follow it to its end, and someday, she envisioned, she would track down the one who had placed that key in her cell. The reward would be great. Would be very great indeed. </p><p><i>Emily is out there somewhere.</i> In this city gone mad. </p><p>And then she reached the chain. </p><p>Rainwater, smelling of oil and iron, poured down the shaft. The chain was cold and slick in her fingers, but she saw no other way up. She must climb. </p><p>Her bare toes caught between the links, her fingers clung and pulled. Shoulders already weak from starvation and beatings burned with the effort. She climbed, hand over hand. Corvo had made her climb. First by a childish dare, <i>bet you can’t climb the training rope in the barracks.</i> Then because if the Tower were to be attacked, he reasoned sensibly to her instructors, she must be able to escape from any room, up or down, inside or out, alongside her protector. </p><p><i>Climb!</i> She heard his voice, the echo of it breaking in his youth, Serkonan accent still strong and high, and then the fledgling man whose grave eyes held true concern for her life, and then- </p><p>Her fingers almost lost their grip but she clung and paused to breathe. The man who had led her with quiet words to the Tower rooftops, to hidden ledges where they might sit and watch her city together, to open places far from watching eyes, up the drainpipe chains to forgotten gardens where they danced to Serkonan music and no one minded if the steps were wrong. </p><p>She closed her eyes and felt the chain, gripped it and pulled herself up. Link by link to the next ledge. Breathless, boneless, she lay on the grating and swallowed down the sharp-edged grief. After six months in prison, under all the pain, she still hadn’t grieved for him. Not properly. </p><p>
  <i>How does one grieve for half a self?</i>
</p><p>A fire burned low nearby, a lurker’s fire in a broken bit of chimney. She blew on the coals until they warmed, then fed it bits of dead grass and refuse. How many of her people lived in forgotten places like this? How many had died there, unfound and unmourned? </p><p>
  <i>How does one grieve for half a city? </i>
</p><p>The coals drove the chill from her bones. She gathered herself; the path continued, and so must she. The black iron crate of supplies was just ahead, as promised by unwitting allies. On it, a note. </p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <i>As promised, weapons and food. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>We are servants of the Empire and of the True Empress, a group of loyalists who wish to commission you for a very special purpose. Take these weapons and supplies as a pledge of our good faith in you. Meet our man Samuel where these tunnels meet the river. He will bring you to us. </i>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>She re-read that sentence. <i>Servants of the Empire and of the True Empress. </i>Hope welled within her, warm as the fire. Hope that they meant her, and not whatever puppetry her spymaster had concocted. Her, and Emily. </p><p>In the crate was food, tinned meat and bread, and a vial of elixir red as fresh blood. She drank it down, swallowing the burn in her throat like raw liquor and felt its potency spread through her belly. It was a coarser brew than what the Imperial Physician had concocted but stronger than the prisoners’ scant doses. They’d wanted her alive to be executed, not dead of the plague or infection, but they’d not wanted her to heal. </p><p>Beneath the foodstuff her fingers closed on the familiar black leather-wrapped handle of Corvo’s sword. </p><p>Her lover’s sword. </p><p>How <i>dare they. </i></p><p>His weapon in the hands of a common street thug? The sword she’d commissioned from Sokolov herself, the handle she’d had fitted precisely to his grip, balanced to his specifications, watched him hone its edge himself until the telescoping blade would slice a floating feather into its parts? The sword was their silent wedding vow writ in steel, all the weight and perfection of her position as Empress bent to craft the weapon worthy of the finest swordsman in the isles, and of his life’s pledge to wield that blade for her and her alone. </p><p>How dare they! Loyal they might be, but they presumed much of their Empress if they would trod so eagerly on Corvo’s memory. </p><p>
  <i>His sword out, flashing across to deflect the blade. He caught the first and the next strike, but the big assassin had help. Three more masked attackers materialized as if by arcane magics, dropping from nowhere to strike at his flanks. Corvo leaned into the cuts, sacrificed himself, trapped the assassin’s blades between his ribs and arm and placed himself between them all and her. Her back to the sea wall, her arms around Emily, the scream torn from her not by the black-eyed masks but by the sight of Corvo pierced through, by the red of his blood on the cold metal and the fleeting warmth of his dying breath. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>That big assassin’s laugh. “Take your vengeance, Empress.”  </i>
</p><p>The sword felt right in her hands. Felt at home, a piece of Corvo cold and sharp; as he had been to her enemies. The river was near, and with it the promise of freedom. </p><p>The sewer channel widened and rose until the ceiling vanished in a tangle of moss and old iron girders, and above it all a train clattered on fresh energized steel. A recorded civil warning belted out <i>Escaped prisoner has killed several soldiers,</i> threatening dire retribution to any citizen who aided her. Burrows would overreach himself, she thought. He would build lie upon lie until the fabrication caught like cobwebs in the flames of intelligence and burned him. But to her common folk beset by plague, rat and guard, an Empress was just a face on a coin; only as good as the bread or elixir her likeness might buy. </p><p>Sunlight, late and clear, and fresh ocean air. Her skin shivered with the wind’s chill touch but it was welcome and familiar, not the cold of the deep the Outsider had brought but the cleansing breath of sunset. </p><p>An old man, grey-haired and weathered, shoulders stooped under his oiled coat and face rough as the Tower’s foundation stone, waited on the narrow sewer dock. His eyes traveled up her frame in confusion-this must be Samuel, then, sent to fetch their killer-and then he saw her face. </p><p>She watched the recognition sink into him, his jaw slack, eyes widening, and heard the groan of his knees as he tried to bow. </p><p><i>“Majesty,”</i> he said, voice rust-rough. </p><p>Behind him a returning whaler blotted out the low sun; a whaler still flying her flag, coming in from distant ocean, its decks running bright with blood and oil. </p><p>But right then she wasn’t Empress. She was just a cold, scared body, and she nearly sobbed with relief-not as his recognition of her, but at the warm coat he striped from his own shoulders to wrap around hers, at the hand he offered to steady her step into the little craft. </p><p>She wanted to speak. There were words to say, words of an empress thanking a loyal subject, an etiquette to observe and reassure and establish hierarchy, but they wouldn’t form. <i>Her mother’s voice, “Don’t speak unless you are sure of your voice, Jessamine. Silence is better than a stutter, or worse, a word you wish to take back! An Empress may never misspeak. Her voice may not quiver or crack or the people will hear her weakness.”</i>  </p><p>The thanks lodged sharp in her throat, stifled under her mistrust of the sound and a swallowed sob of pure gratefulness. She may not bow to hide her own face. She may not cry, not even wipe away tears.  She blinked and looked away, out over the bright water, and worked her jaw until the burn in her throat subsided. And then back at Samuel, just once, and down. Away. Unforgivably deferential to a common old sailor, but from a cold, lost woman? All she could give. </p><p>He understood. He nodded once and took the oars and the little boat slid, graceful and silent, over golden wave-rippled sea. </p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p>
<p>The dusk was thick with saltwater and tar, warm bricks and smelter smoke. From the boat the shoreline looked broken and desolate, and no other people or watercraft were about. </p>
<p>“We’re hiding under their nose, behind the quarantine walls. You’ll see. Havelock’s got an old place of his all fixed up for their headquarters, him and Pendleton.” </p>
<p>Pendleton. That name surprised her. The three brothers were not known for setting common good above their own appetites; she knew very well how their family business was run. A blind eye from the crown, though reforms were on her list of Council topics. What role did they play in all of this? And Havelock. Ambitious but unimaginative Havelock. An odd combination. </p>
<p>Her head hurt and her feet ached, and Corvo’s sword was heavy in her hands. </p>
<p>The little boat bumped into the steps and Samuel tied it to its makeshift pier. He helped her step from the boat to the stairs, but she limped up them unaided. Her knees had stiffened in the boat ride but she would not approach this place leaning on an old man’s arm. </p>
<p>She made herself stand straight, inch by inch. Uncurled her spine and drew her shoulders back. Ribs ached with every breath. Instinct said draw in, make small, disappear, avoid the pain, but no. This was not a prison. </p>
<p>Ruined brick walls and refuse, white paint and grinning human skulls. Dead rats and fish bones and trailing green weeds. </p>
<p>Not a prison. </p>
<p>Her hand gripped Corvo’s sword, its blade folded in. There would be no more prisons. </p>
<p>Samuel walked ahead of her, as if sensing her unease. “They will not be expecting you, your majesty, but they will be glad to see you free.” </p>
<p>Jessamine lifted her chin once, acknowledging his words. Each step barefoot across the stony yard. She would enter that door their empress. She paused at the door and waved Samuel back when he moved to open it for her. And she took a breath to thank him for his service. </p>
<p>Her voice would not come. </p>
<p>Muscles bunched in her jaw. She worked her throat, swallowing against the dryness. </p>
<p>“Please don’t trouble yourself, your majesty. Not on my account. There will be others need your words more, best save them. But you need to sit a while, I’m out there by the dock.” He gestured to a rude hut of derelict boat staves and tin roofing. She’d mistaken it for a heap of trash. </p>
<p>She nodded again and his words, humble though they were, warmed her. She had one citizen to call her own. </p>
<p>The door opened with a creak of unoiled hinges and the scents of woodsmoke, sweat and alcohol rode heavy on the warm air. “Ah, our man has-“ </p>
<p>Havelock’s voice. He stood at the bar, a tankard of beer in his hand. One of the Pendletons, rail-thin and pinch-faced, was there too. They both stared at her. </p>
<p>The wooden floor was kinder on her feet than the stones outside. Samuel’s coat was a cloak on royal shoulders. Her eyes were narrow, her head up, lips compressed in the small cold smile of superior neutrality she’d mastered years ago. She hadn’t seen herself in a mirror since the morning of Corvo’s death but by the way the men stared at her then caught themselves and offered hasty bows, the innate Empress within her still lived. Was still recognizable. </p>
<p>She stopped as near the bar’s small iron fireplace as her pride would allow, and then she waited. </p>
<p>Silence made other people speak. Silence made the self-conscious, the guilty, the proud fill it with their own words, made them reveal themselves. Better men than these had hung themselves as they scrambled to cover a silence. </p>
<p>Lord Pendleton recovered first. “Ah, your majesty! Your freedom is an unexpected miracle. Empress Jessamine, may I present Admiral Havelock, of your Royal Imperial Navy. He has surrendered his post in protest of Burrows’ coup and now leads our small band of loyalists.” </p>
<p>“Welcome to the Hound Pits Pub, your majesty.” Havelock was taller than her by a head and then some, his shoulders immensely broad. </p>
<p><i>Broad as the torturer,</i> she thought, and consciously held her ground. There was enough space between them to save her from looking up to meet his eye but if he approached, if he forced her to step back or crane her neck like a schoolgirl, she would-</p>
<p>The sword was cold in her pained grip but she had no need of another jailer, and Lord Pendleton, whichever of them this was, would become the very compliant new leader of these loyalists.  </p>
<p>Havelock kept his distance. He cleared his throat and set aside his drink. “We are glad to see you alive and well. Forgive my hesitation; we had arranged to free an assassin, and have not prepared for your arrival. We have need of a warrior’s skill. There are many loyal to you in the city, your majesty, but strong men stand between them and us. It was our hope that the Bottle Street killer might help clear the way. We will need to reevaluate, while you rest. Lord Pendleton, if you-“ </p>
<p>She’d heard enough. She’d seen the way his eyes slid dismissively off her, how he spoke to the dark empty room and to the man at his side instead of to his sovereign. </p>
<p>The sword blade snapped out smooth as oil. She held it up, as if admiring its edge. <i> Speak. Speak! </i> The words must be perfect. She must rule this man, unquestionably, or she must kill him too. The sword blade was long for her height and reach, sized for Corvo, but she knew its balance well. </p>
<p>“We desire the names of those ‘strong men,’” she said. Her voice was harsh and rough, the tempo weak, but it was enough. </p>
<p>Havelock’s eyes were on her again, wide and direct. Maybe now he saw her. </p>
<p>“Your majesty, we would hardly-“ </p>
<p>She flicked the sword at Pendleton, its point nowhere near him, and her eye on its edge again. The gesture was enough and he held his tongue. </p>
<p>Havelock cleared his throat. “I will prepare our evidence, Empress. We have a place ready for an assassin; it is rude, but it is safe and it, and all we have, are at your disposal. With your leave I will present our plans to you tomorrow and we will decide a course of action. Our loyalty is, as ever, to you and to your throne.” </p>
<p>“And of course, to little Emily.” Pendleton again. Now she dropped the sword point and graced him with her attention. “We do not know her whereabouts, but we know who knows and have been preparing to move against them. With your, ah, sword and, ahem, your majesty’s unquestionable skill at diplomacy, I’m sure the Lady Emily will be found and freed within days. Now, I’m sure you are exhausted from your ordeal. We are short on decent women around the place but I believe that niece of Curnow’s is about somewhere. Wallace? Wallace!” he shouted at the pub’s inner door. </p>
<p>Wallace, evidently, stepped through fast enough to have been eavesdropping. He approached Pendleton and took his orders with the exact mix of arrogance and subservience she hated in her own servants. He was gone only moments, barely long enough for her silence to grow thin again, before he returned with a long-backed woman in tow. </p>
<p>Curnow. Callista. The name came to her out of memory; her captain of the guard speaking of his favorite, and then closest, and finally only living relative. Jessamine saw the resemblance. </p>
<p>The woman dropped into a precise curtsey. She did not smile; no pleasantries, no simpering or apologies or fawning. “If you would permit it, Empress, I would be glad to serve you here. We have no trusted physician at this time but my family were all soldiers and in the guard. I will do what I can for your comfort.” </p>
<p>She looked the thin woman in the face. Callista’s eyes lowered, briefly, then came up to meet her gaze. Neither challenging nor pitying, just steady, cold and solid as stone. This was a woman with nothing but her self-worth, and that no one would take from her. </p>
<p>Polite, before an empress, but not demure. Not quite respectful either, but for that Jessamine forgave her. The throne was far away. </p>
<p>She nodded and swallowed; her throat unsteady. </p>
<p>But Callista seemed to understand and, blessedly, they left Pendleton and Havelock behind to their whispering and their beer. </p>
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</p>
<p>Callista showed her first to a washroom, with a serviceable tub and hot water in the tap. “The Loyalists keep some comforts,” she said, her tone unreadable. “I will return with clothing and bandages.” </p>
<p>Jessamine stared at the porcelain tub yellowed from use, at the sink cluttered with other people’s bathroom items, and then at the mirror, edges gone black with age. At the sunken-eyed woman there. Herself. </p>
<p>She gripped the sink’s edge. </p>
<p>Survive. Live, find Emily. Take vengeance. Take her throne. </p>
<p>She imagined the creature in the mirror on the throne, the parody of womanhood surrounded by perfection and opulence. A crone in rags, a voice like an iron hinge, back bowed by pain. </p>
<p><i>Take vengeance. </i>For this, for the mirror. For the body and for her daughter and for Corvo. She had faced the first trial of her new rule and, by the grace of Corvo’s sword, had come through if not victor at least not lesser. Havelock would obey. Pendleton would perform a pretense of obedience, but he would not work openly against her. Small victories. </p>
<p>The water was hot, painfully, wonderfully hot on her skin. She sank into it by degrees, relishing in the steam. The soap was strong and serviceable and cut the months of grit, sweat and oil from her skin and what was left of her hair. It smelled familiar, like the soap they’d used in the guardhouses. Like Corvo’s hands, when he came back from there. </p>
<p>She washed herself twice, careful over the scabs and cuts. The torturer had guarded against infection but not pain and had slathered the burns and marks with caustic ointments. </p>
<p>She was out of the water, wrapped in a rough towel and contemplating again the mirror when Callista knocked twice and entered.  </p>
<p>“I apologize, your majesty, we have no appropriate clothing on hand.” </p>
<p>Jessamine waved away her words. She would gladly rule dressed in nothing but a clean sheet, provided she never need see the prison rags again. </p>
<p>Callista set down her bundles. Plain undergarments and patched outerwear, such as a common woman might wear on the street. Good enough. </p>
<p>“I, if you would permit me, I brought salve and wrappings. For your feet. I have some experience with this.” </p>
<p>She would, Jessamine thought, if she came from a family of soldiers. She sat on the bathroom stool and Callista knelt on the floor, a towel on her lap. She took each foot gently in hand and rubbed the salve into the old abrasions and the fresh cuts, then probed at the displaced bones just behind the middle toe. “If your majesty would permit?” she asked, and looked up. “There will be pain, but I can realign the bone.” </p>
<p>It hurt. Very much. But Jessamine bore it with practiced stoicism, her only outward sign the grip she kept on the tub’s smooth edge. And the grip was not for the pain but for the unexpected sensation of a gentle touch, of another’s fingers on her skin, and of the scent of the salve. Medicinal and harsh, mint and rosemary oil, cool on the swollen skin. Salve for hounds’ feet. </p>
<p>“It’s how they keep a prisoner from running,” Callista explained as she wrapped first the right foot, then the left. “My uncle taught me. Displace the middle bone of the middle toe, just behind the joint. The right is broken, I’m sorry but it will never heal correctly. A physician would do better.” She set the jar of salve on the counter beside the sink. “Take it with you. It will ease the swelling and help with the cuts.” </p>
<p>She seemed oblivious to her casual ordering of the Empress but Jessamine couldn’t hold it against her. A woman born among soldiers would learn to speak with authority or be resigned to silence and invisibility. And at that moment, in the tiny bathroom, Jessamine was inclined to exercise grace. Callista could have ordered her to stand on the toilet seat and dance a jig and she would have forgiven it, for the gift of the salve and the firm unpitying kindness. </p>
<p><br/>
</p>
<p>The attic room Callista showed her to was warm, dry and secluded, silent save for the sounds of the waves and gulls. Lantern-light played over beetle-worn slats white with salt rime. The bed was small and narrow, its mattress thin and blankets worn, but it was clean. Fresh. Free of lice and bedbugs, without mold and damp. </p>
<p>“I’m sure you heard. They expected a killer from the gangs.” Callista spoke without apology, simply stating why the room was what it was, as she smoothed the blankets and checked the lantern oil. “Piero was working on something for him; I’m not sure what. It may be of help to you, your majesty. If you need anything call for me. My room is in the ruin across the yard. Or call for Samuel, he sleeps in the yard and will hear.” The same precise curtsey. She did not wait for a dismissal but she hesitated at the latch. “Your majesty, my uncle always spoke highly of you. If there were one to say who lived and who died, for what they did to you and the Lord Protector, I would rather it be you than some street knifer.” </p>
<p>And she was alone. </p>
<p>Jessamine sat on the bed. The springs groaned even under her slight weight. She lay on it, lay flat and listened to the waves. The prison walls had been too thick to hear the ocean and the stink too thick to smell the salt air, but here it surrounded her. Reminded her she was free. She left the lantern burning low, its mellow light a reminder when she woke that she was still here, this place not the dream. </p>
<p>No, the dream was the cold damp stone and rhythm of guards’ boots, the drip of the old iron pipes and the dry rat scuttle. Just a dream, just a dream, closing in every time she closed her eyes. </p>
<p>And when she opened them to the grey-blue of the deep, and breathed in not the chill damp of the night but the crushing cold, she knew, bone-deep, that this was neither dream nor waking. She followed the pale blue glow on feet that did not hurt, with a back straight and firm. The pub was an afterthought, a floating nexus of brick and stone in a sea of manmade detritus. Here a lamp post, there a rowboat, all broken and in disarray. </p>
<p>A place of broken, sunken things and the forgotten god they fell to. </p>
<p>“You have found your loyal few, Empress.” The Outsider coalesced as if from ink in the water, all black eyes and black blood. “Pendleton seeks to distinguish himself from among his brothers and Havelock wants the power you will give him as reward. Their ambitions are your throne, for now. Your life, and what you choose to do next, will forever shape your city. For this I have drawn you here, into the void. I have an offer for you, Empress.” </p>
<p>She made herself turn away from him and look out over his realm, as if judging him by his watery temple, though she felt his gaze as ice on her spine. “My throne is crafted from the love and loyalty of my people, as every sovereigns’ should be. Those who have no loyalty sit themselves in blood and fear.” She turned back to him. “We would hear your offer,” she said. Here surrounded by profane ruin her voice was as she remembered it; calm and commanding and unquestionable. </p>
<p>“There is power in the world, what men call magic and what the Abbey calls heresy.” He spoke with voice and hands, long-fingered and fish-bone pale. “I would grant you my mark and with it the ability to use that power. The Void runs strong in your city, Empress. The Abbey writes its scriptures in plain ink; they have no authority over it.” He leaned close, the deep black pits of his eyes mirroring back her own gaze. “With my mark the Void would bend to your will. Use it to go where others cannot. Search your city. Find your child. Build your throne of loyalty, or of blood, or of deepest shadow.” </p>
<p>“And what would you have from us in return for this mark?” </p>
<p>“I ask only this, dear Empress. <i> Succeed. </i>” </p>
<p>Succeed. The old god did not need another desperate woman crying for a lost child. Her city was full of them. And he did not, it seemed, need a usurper or a loyalist. He wanted an Empress wearing his profane sigil, set hand-in-hand with the Abbey. Maybe her, maybe her daughter. The cold laughter in his eyes told her she’d guessed his purpose. </p>
<p>“We will take your mark and we will take our city, but we will not surrender it to your rule,” she said. </p>
<p>He laughed, open-mouthed like a proud child. “Your city is a toy to me, Empress. I care nothing for its fate.” He gestured and her hand burned with fresh fire, cold fire, unlike the branding irons and hot coals of the torturer. She clenched her fist and the fire faded to lines black as ink, charred into her flesh. “I care only to see you take it back, or die in failure.” He laughed again, all white teeth overlarge for his face. “Test its power for yourself, Empress. Come find me.” He vanished in a swirl of wave and ink. </p>
<p>The mark burned with power. She felt it coil deep inside her, like the thrill of wind in a sail. Potential. That power would take her places. Throw her far and high. A simple trick, to go from here to there, but in a city of rooftops and walls and towers, invaluable. </p>
<p>She tested it, let the Void bring her to her desired place. Ah, so it had range. Limitations. Was the little god’s power limited by line of sight or was he keeping her on a short leash? Irrelevant. With this, she could go a thousand places and open a thousand doors. With this, just this, the city was open to her. But there was more. She felt the Void whisper through the mark as she traversed the floating ruins. </p>
<p>The labyrinth was a place of nightmare, fragments of memory disordered into chaos and plunged into crushing darkness. Familiar faces, marionettes of the people she’d once trusted, arranged to mirror her suspicions. </p>
<p><i>This is not prophecy, </i>she told herself. The Outsider was an old, deep god but nowhere in his liturgy did he promise not to lie. Changeable and deceptive as the sea, and as unforgiving.  </p>
<p>But here her feet did not hurt, and her breath did not ache against bruised and healing ribs. The magic in the mark drew her in. <i>Find, fight, kill. </i>She was Empress, all was within her right, and more so she was Mother. </p>
<p>She found the scene of Corvo’s death, warped dream-like with blood in a flower around his body. She found Emily, struggling against men who wore familiar faces. Found Burrows at her city maps, deep in his scheming. </p>
<p><i>This and more, </i>the Void promised. </p>
<p>She closed her hand on the mark and blinked across space to the final bit of ruin, where the Outsider waited. </p>
<p>“Find my shrines and gather the bones my followers leave there. Your power will grow, Empress, beyond anything wielded by mortal men. Find them, and all your desires will be within your grasp.” </p>
<p>“You are not the god of the dead,” she said. </p>
<p>“No.” He held out his right hand and a thing of muscle and metal materialized in his palm. “But I know death well.” He placed the flesh-red thing in her hands and it trembled. Steel and stitching held it together and clockwork ticked away within it, but it shivered with life at her touch. “The heart of a living creature, molded by my hands. Hold it close and listen. It will tell you many secrets.” </p>
<p>He vanished again, and she brought the heart to her chest and kissed its dry leathery skin and screamed with rage. Fury hissed through her, fury and pain and desperation not her own. She breathed in Corvo’s final thoughts. Terror, believing he’d failed, the cold inevitability of his death minutes before it happened. The knowing <i>there is no coming back from this. </i>The certainty of failure. </p>
<p>He was dead all over again in her arms, his death preserved eternally in that clockwork beat. </p>
<p>“You did not fail,” she whispered. “You died for me but we lived, my love. We lived.” </p>
<p>Words of comfort she’d whispered to him as he traced the marks of wounds old and new. <i>We lived, we’re here, we’re alright. </i>No one could have known the ambassador’s butler was an assassin. No one could have anticipated the new serving maid had been paid to kill a noble. The assassins in the garden had not been anywhere near the first, just the most thorough; had they all lived he would have come to her full of regret and shame, deriding himself for weakness at not stopping them sooner. Agonizing over her fear and any fresh mark of blade on her skin. And she would have reassured him of her life and her trust. </p>
<p>Their love wasn’t the absence of shame. No, they’d both spoken words they’d regretted, done things that made them unwilling to meet their lover’s eye. Been angry, jealous, hurt. Taken out fears and insecurities on each other. But those moments were impermanent, just texture on the surface, and where there was pain there was also patience and after harsh words, gentleness. </p>
<p>There was shame, and release from shame. There was anger, and understanding. </p>
<p>She who must be perfect on her throne was permitted to be nothing but human before him, and he who must never show fear or hesitation might entrust his weakness to her. </p>
<p>How could there ever be another? </p>
<p>She tore out her anger and her grief in the void. The little god wanted to play games; good, let him run off and hide from her sorrow. </p>
<p>Here between worlds, in the cold deep, she clutched her own heart and wept. The fleshy thing between her hands beat on, mechanically, forced to by the little god’s whim and by her own weakness. It ought to be burned, ought to be laid to rest with his body, but she clung to it. She owned it, it was hers, he’d given it to her, in life and in death. </p>
<p>She screamed, though her throat burned. Screamed because she wanted the sorrow to hurt. This was her own pain, not theirs. Her own penance. The only apology she might offer. </p>
<p>She was alone now. </p>
<p>Her thorns twisted tighter under her skin and the mark shimmered on her hand. Alone, but not without allies. The Outsider waited in his labyrinth. Politely ignoring her grief, or too fixated on his own games to care? She tasted the salt of her own tears in the salt of his ocean, and stood to find him. </p>
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